Lifeboat Foundation

A video uploaded by the CSAIL team shows off the system. The drone pilot is able to maneuver a small drone through a series of rings easily just by twisting, raising, and lowering his forearm thanks to a device strapped around his arm.

The goal is to make controlling the drone — and potentially other pieces of technology — as natural as possible by harnessing human intuition.

Continue reading “This System Lets You Fly a Drone With Arm Gestures” »

It started as a regular, recreational drone flight. It ended with the rescue of a woman who was lying motionless on the beach. #dronesforgood

Go big or go home. This Alabama-based start-up just unveiled the biggest drone in the world — and it looks sublime. The massive drone, called the Ravn X, is designed to launch small satellites into orbit while airborne.

Aevum — the space startup — has worked mainly in the background, until yesterday when they unveiled their gigantic autonomous drone.

They built the high-altitude aircraft and launch vehicle to ferry satellites to orbit and improve space access — similar goals to space-tech leaders like Virgin Orbit, Rocket Lab, and SpaceX. But if you want to get ahead of the competition and can’t be the first, why not be the biggest?

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Approach could speed up search and rescue missions and forest surveys.

Continue reading “Watch a swarm of drones fly through heavy forest—while staying in formation” »

The Marines want to unleash swarms of loitering munitions on its adversaries.

Meet the Smellicopter is a tiny drone developed by scientists at the University of Washington, capable of detecting smells like gas leaks, explosives, or even the survivors of a natural disaster. This amazing, obstacle avoiding UAV doesn’t use a man-made sensor to smell: it uses a moth antenna to navigate towards an odor.

A research paper published in IOP Science describes Smellicopter as “A bio-hybrid odor-guided autonomous palm-sized air vehicle.” The advantages to such a vehicle are clear: the tiny drone can travel in places that humans cannot or should not: the rubble of buildings after a natural disaster; zones where chemical leaks or spills may have occurred; or conflict zones that may contain chemical or explosive weapons.

Continue reading “Smellicopter Tiny Drone Uses Moth Antenna to Find Smells” »

A conflict monitor says an engine, akin to those used in V-1 flying bombs, was found in Iraq in 2017.

Drone services company DroneUp has been approved for an industry-first FAA Waiver for flight over people and moving vehicles to support drone delivery of COVID-19 test kits anywhere in the U.S.

Scaling drone delivery throughout the country will require flight over people and moving vehicles, something that U.S. drone regulations currently prohibit without a waiver. Now, DroneUp, LLC announces that it has been approved “for the Federal Aviation Administrations (FAA) Section 107.39 Operation Over People Waiver allowing the unrestricted flight over non-participating persons and moving vehicles to support the drone delivery of COVID-19 test kits,” according to a press release.

“DroneUp’s 107.39 waiver is the first to allow drone delivery operations over people anywhere in the United States without predefined operating areas, locations, or routes. The waiver is also a first to allow unrestricted delivery overflight of moving vehicles.”

DroneSeed will be allowed to operates drones beyond visual line of sight.

DroneSeed, a company that uses fleets of drones to reforest areas burned in wildfires, received approval in October from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its heavy-lift drones to operate Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and to expand its use of heavy-lift drone swarms to California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.

Continue reading “FAA gives approval for company to use swarms of drones to reforest burned areas” »